The Traveling Wilder-Piggies

Have pork will travel...sometimes.

Delivery of our pork is becoming less common. Up until this past winter we were delivering pork carcasses all over Chicago and we enjoyed it, but it became too much. The deliveries took all day and had to be done in between am and pm chores which meant delivery days were looooooong days.

So we quit.
Yup, that's us, big quitters. Something had to give before it all collapsed so we told our chefs the meat was still available but they would need to come to us, I mean the locker, if they wanted big hunks of meat.

But, restaurants are busy people too so they went to some other farmer friends of yours who could deliver. A good deal for all of us really because our farm store business makes up for what we lost in restaurant deliveries.

We will still deliver a small roaster hog from time to time though. If the timing is right and the direction is one we were heading anyway which is what happened last week. We had orders for two roaster hogs made well in advance, as you can't call us Thursday and expect a roaster hog on Friday people.

But Patrick is a well organized fellow and he ordered his piggie months ago. He even came down with pals Jared and Helma to check on its progress earlier this summer. Then another customer, Ivan, ordered a roaster for a party he was giving the same weekend.

Ivan lucked out as he called late, but the stars were in his favor as we going that direction and the locker had room for one more Kill and Chill, as they like to call them. You see, they kill it, scald it , to remove all the hair and then Chill it in their big cooler. We pick it up the next day and deliver it whole.

Thus after chores last Thursday we headed East to pick up the hogs at the locker than North East to Ivan's where he had ordered a pre-made Chinese Roasting box. Fortunately the 80 pound hog he ordered (it came in at 73 pounds thank you very much) fit nicely in the wooden and metal contraption. It looked like this:

Next we headed North West to Kinnikinnick Farm  where Patrick was having his party.

Patrick knows how to throw a party.

Not only did they rent all 5 of the  Coolest Tents ever (already set up for rentals at Kinnikinnick) they also talked the owners into letting them build their own hog roaster oven on the property. The oven was built based on the weight of the roaster they ordered, between 100-120 pounds. Fortunately for us and them, the hanging weight was exactly 120 pounds! Their roasting contraption looked like this:

That's Jared on the left and Patrick the Party Planner on the right. I do believe these are the biggest smiles I have ever seen on the faces of one (two) of our customers. Behind them is the wonderful farmhouse, built in the mid-1800's, belonging to Susan and David Cleverdon, the owners of Kinnikinnick Farm.

On the way home (A 10 hour round trip, Yikes) I mentioned to Keith how awful it would have been if something would've have interfered with our delivery of the hog. A sudden September snow storm perhaps. All those people expecting juicy pork chops, the money laid out for the roaster, the tent and farm rental. thus the reason we never tell our pigs ahead of time the special destiny chosen for each of them.

They could never take the pressure.